Now that there is a cause to focus on, I had to figure out a way to actually help. Stay tuned to read about the chronicles of a 16-year-old businesswoman with lofty goals to change the world one grilled cheese at a time!
Have you ever wondered how charities can thrive solely on donations? It gets redundant to ask the same people to donate to the same cause, and at some point there is donor burn out. So I came up with a simple idea to make a perpetual flow of money into a charity without having to ask for donations every month from the same people. It allows me to combine two things that I am passionate about: philanthropy and entrepreneurship.
I decided to start a small business and donate all of the profit to International Justice Mission. If the business is successful, it will provide a constant flow of money onto the organization without asking anyone for donations. I understand this idea is not a new one . For example, the founder of TOMS (Blake Mycoskie) is a social entrepreneur—his company donates one pair of shoes to someone in need for every pair sold, among other things.
Being a social entrepreneur is not all about just giving money to a charity. By having a business that backs a charity, customers will become informed on what the business is doing behind the scenes. The business can use this platform to reach even more people and inform them, in my case, about the work IJM is doing. Awareness will spread, more people will get involved, and change will happen.